Pearl Jam and Incubus - Concert in the Park (Nijmegen 28-6-2007)

It was a bright sunny afternoon when I arrived in Rotterdam to collect Barry, my mum and her friend in my intrepid steel friend, Lolita. We were all giddy as school children and merrily set off on our way. All was going well, we were making good time, the sun was shining and despite a few typically fluffy clouds it looked as though it was going to be a great day out in the Park.

..then we got to Nijmegen. Nijmegen has a rather nasty joke that it likes to play on all tourists and learner drivers. It is the Roundabout From Hell! A three lane roundabout with no lanes and no right of way to the vehicles already on the roundabout. There are also no lights warning one when a particlar offshot is now allowed on. Needless to say, I came close to wanting to expunge Nijmegen from my mental map. I have already done this to Lisse and Haarlem because their traffic systems had me going in circles and this was starting to prove the case here, literally.

Luckily I finally managed to get off the roundabout long enough to allow Barry to get perfect directions from some poor unsuspecting female walking along the pavement or we would still be there going round and round and round and round...

That was the only glitch of the day I am happy to say. After parking the car we made our way to the festival grounds and grabbed a beer before making our way over to the stage. Due to our traffic adventures we'd already missed the first two bands but none of us were particularly fussed about that. They were bands we dont know and had never heard of so we were just happy to be in time for the two bands we'd come to see.

Shortly after finding a spot to stand Incubus hit the stage. I have to admit they were not as on form as they were two years ago when I saw them at the Lowlands festival but they still put on a good show and played a lot of songs from the new album "Light Grenades". Mr Boyd was spot on with his singing and Baz and I had a good time singing along with old favourites as well as new ones.

They left the stage after an hour and we decided to go in search of something to eat. Of course at these kind of festivals you dont really expect to find anything terribly healthy but the food was surprisingly good and not the usual dripping-in-fat fare I have had at most of these events. After filling the gap it was time to go grab a spot for PJ.

The stage went dark and the screens lit up with shots of artwork from the new album and then there they were. The crowd went nuts as the band took to the stage and launched into Release, quickly followed by Go, Hail Hail and Worldwide Suicide.
The rest of the set list included Do the Evolution, Given To Fly, Not For You, Wishlist, Even Flow, Insignificance, Unemployable, Jeremy, Nothingman, Betterman/Save it for Later, Corduroy and Why Go with Eddie Vedder engaging the audience time and again throughout the set making it feel like we were all at some big private party and the band were just thrilled to be playing for us!!

Then they left the stage abruptly and familiar call of "we want more" rang through the grounds. We only had to wait a short while before the band came out for the first of two encores to play , a medley of Daughter, Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall and the familiar War, What is it Good For (Absolutely Nothing!), Leash and Rearviewmirror. By now I was losing my voice but I didn't care. The atmosphere was just electric!

For the second encore Mr Vedder started off on his own playing an accoustic guitar and singing a song he wrote for a soldier he met who is now a paraplegic since his tour in Iraq. It is well known that Pearl Jam are fervently against the war in Iraq and the Bush Administration and Eddie made his feelings very plain on the matter. Some may feel that politics has no place in music but given the general apathy of people these days I personally think its great to see an artist using his position to not only entertain but also get people at least thinking about whats going on their world.

But the highlight of the second encore was undoubtably hearing Alive. OK, so it wasn't Black as I had really hoped for but hearing the opening strains of Alive sent the whole crowd wild and for the duration of the number and the number after that, a cover of Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World, everyone was part of one big fantastic musical moment.

They finished with Yellow Ledbetter, just as they did in Arnhem last year and once the music had ended the entire band threw momentos to the crowd in front (Next time I'm at the barricade, no matter what!) and we were given a heartfelt goodbye from Eddie and the gang.

All in all it was a show not to be missed and I am giddy that I've now seen my favourite band twice in as many years. I only hope they come back next year and the year after that and the year after that...